3taps countersues Craigslist, accuses ad site of antitrust violations

But Craigslist continues to stay mum about its business, legal strategy.

3taps has locked horns in a legal battle with Craigslist for nearly two months, and on Monday the company launched a countersuit against its rival. 3taps accuses Craigslist of antitrust violations and unfair competition.

In response to growing grumbling over Craigslist’s shocking refusal to change its user interface or add features, other sites have sprung up to use Craigslist data as a way to create new business—most notably perhaps was PadMapper (which helps potential tenants find apartments as plotted on Google Maps). In July, Craigslist filed lawsuits against three companies that had previously been using its data by scraping it directly and accused them of copyright violation.

3taps, meanwhile, openly defied that plan. Instead, the company scrapes the Google cache of Craigslist’s classified listings, so Craigslist responded by telling search engines to stop indexing ads. For now, 3taps appears to have a strong legal case, having noted previously that no one can hold a copyright on a public fact—such as the price or number of bedrooms of a given apartment.

"While we respect what Craigslist has accomplished in the past in attaining dominance over online classified advertising, we object to them using that market power illegally to stifle innovation and hurt consumers,” Greg Kidd, founder and CEO of 3taps, wrote in a statement. “As Craigslist spends heavily to bully and intimidate companies that challenge them, consumers are deprived of better ways to find and execute real-time exchange transactions."

Kidd went on to accuse Craigslist of using its “monopoly position to achieve huge annual profits without sinking any meaningful costs into research and development or innovation.”

Craigslist’s CEO and the company spokesperson both failed to respond to Ars’ requests for comment made via phone, Twitter, and e-mail.